Q:Is it possible for a wire to arc with a nail? The u-nail that hangs the wire to a wooden support beam looks like it was hammered in too far and may have cut through the insulation around the wire. Is this a fire hazard or can I leave it as is?

Did it cut through the outside sheathing or one of the conductor sheathing? If its just the outside sheathing, remove the staple and secure the wire further away. Use electrical tape and wrap the cut...If it has penetrated one of the inside conductors, well, without seeing it its hard to tell you. The biggest concern would be if the wire ever overheated there is less 'insulation' to prevent it from burning into a neighbouring wire. Err on the side of caution. More detail would help.

Q:I need the designations for the wires so I can splice in an amp.

Speaker wires: left front: (+) tan (-) gray right front: (+) lt. green (-) dk. green left rear: (+) brown (-) yellow right rear: (+) dk. blue (-) lt. blue Accessory power at radio for amp turn-on: yellow (only in 2003 and older; should be located next to orange constant power wire)

Q:I need to wire a single 120v outlet from the 240v volt wire I use on my compressor. Im installing a 120v electric automatic drain valve on my large shop air compressor. The compressor is wired up with SJ00W 10-AWG, 4-wire power cable (red,green,black white wires). and is rated at 240v @ 15-amp(compressor not wire). The drain valve uses a normal house hold current wiring config. (black,white and open copper)The 240v power supply is the only supply I have near by, (two of them actually) Or I would just wire the automatic valve off an outlet and call it a day. So How do I wire a 120v 3-wire set up from the 240v 4-wire supply? Thanks

While it is not code, and I wouldn't advertise that you're doing it, you can quite easily take standard 12-2 romex, hook black to black, white to white and bare copper to the green, then install a 20 amp GFCI receptacle on the end of the 12-2 to run your drain valve.

Q:You have been given two samples of wire: one nichrome, one aluminum. Describe a procedure you could use to determine which sample was nichrome and which was aluminum

first, knowing the resistance of each wire (i dont know it, you need to look it up) i would set up a circuit to put out [X] amt of current (the amt of the lowest resistance in the wires) and run the current thru the wires to a light bulb. if the bulb doesnt light, you now have figured out that this is the wire with the most resistance (again i dont know which has a higher one) for clarification- aluminum resistance = X nichrome resistance = y circuit with current EQUAL to resistance of the lowest wire (for example if X was lowest with 3 ohms, you would set the current to however many amps/volts are required to overcome that) and then connect it to a bulb. when its turned on, if the bulb doesnt light, you have determined that it isnt wire X but wire Y. even more simply, just list the wires by their resistance. if X=3 ohms, Y= 4 ohms, and the bulb doesnt light at 3, you have determined that its wire Y. im assuimng you would have the resistance of the wires? this is how i would do it, but if thats the right way? i dunno. but it is one way.

Q:When I cross the black wire and ground I get a spark. Isnthis normal?

Well, one of the wires has to be hot, or it defeats the entire purpose! Yes, generally black is the code for the hot wire. White is generally neutral, and green is ground. There are weird exceptions, so don't assume anything about anything. White and green are not the same, by design. There should be working voltage between either of them. There should be negligible voltage between neutral and ground. If you don't know what you're doing, don't work on house wiring with the power on. That stuff can burn you. Burns are the worst injury to recover from, in terms of taking a long time, being painful during that time, and leaving you scarred in the end. On second thought, don't work on it with the power off either. You can hook things up wrong and it will seemingly work until one day it bites somebody, possibly not you. Learn how to do it properly. It is not that hard, but you do need to do the research. It also helps to have a few basic tools like the plug polarity checker.

Q:Obviously speaker wire is what connects the speaker to the receiver; what's the difference between 'zip' speaker wire and...others...?

Zip cord is just a euphemism for the A/c cord you would wire a light with.

Q:I'm not sure what kind of wire to use to make wire rings. I had found 50ft of thin wire for a cheap price from city mill. Is there a difference between wire from city mill and wire from Walmart or Ben Franklin? I went to Walmart yesterday and the wire was expensive for such a short length. Am I able to use wire from city mill or is it different from wire you would get from a craft store? To me, wire is wire but i really don't know much about crafts.

There okorder /

Q:what are the ground and power wires for a walmart replacement cigarette lighter?

the power wire is usually a colored wire like red,blue. the other wire should be white,green or a bare copper wire.

Q:I notice my 10/100 Ethernet wire uses 4 wires (2 twisted pairs). I'm curious what each wire is used for. I understand one pair is for Tx (transmit) and the other for Rx (receive) but why does it need 2 wires for each? I assume bits of data cross on one, but what of the other?

This is an ethernet only cable. A full patch lead has 8 cables. Yours is STILL an ethernet cable. The additional blue pair would be telephone and the brown pair was unused, but is commonly used for power over ethernet now. ANY data connection requires 2 cables to balance the signal. In effect one is pushing voltage while the other is pulling and vice versa. One is signal, in effect the other is a ground, bur the idea is that by using twisted pair cables the inductive voltage created in one polarity on one is cancelled by the inductive voltage returning on the other in opposite polarity. The same rule applies to external interference from other equipment as these are also cancelled. If it used one cable and a common ground you can never guarantee this immunity to interference.

Q:the charger has three wires to put a male plug on and they are black white and green and they look like 12 gauge wires

wire colors are green is ground the black and white wires are you load wires look at you 240 volt plug and determine which terminal is the ground this one is where the green wire goes the black and white wire go to other two terminals this should do it